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Sylvester Stallone is teaming with MGM to produce a movie about boxer Jack Johnson, who was recently posthumously pardoned by President Donald Trump.

The film will launch Stallone’s Balboa Productions, created to develop film and television projects.

Johnson was a dominant boxer and the first African-American heavyweight champion. Stallone was instrumental in obtaining a presidential pardon for Johnson, who was convicted of violating the Mann Act in 1910 for transporting a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes.”

MGM Motion Picture Group president Jonathan Glickman and MGM executive vice president of production Adam Rosenberg are overseeing the film on behalf of the studio.

Stallone partnered with MGM on the Rocky movies and the “Creed” spinoff. “Creed II,” which hits theaters in November, is the continuation of the Rocky franchise and the sequel to 2015’s “Creed,” which earned more than $170 million at the worldwide box office. The new film, starring Michael B. Jordan and Stallone,...

Ken Burns already tackled Jack Johnson in a feature documentary - Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, the 3 1/2-hour 2005 film; Burns will return to the life of Johnson, but this time via a scripted 4 to 6-part mini-series for HBO, says Deadline. HBO has hired Beau Willimon (Ides of March) to pen the script, which will see Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman produce (via their Playtone Partners production company) along with Ken Burns, who will also direct the series, which will be based on Geoffrey C. Ward's book Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson - the same book that Burns based his 2005 PBS feature documentary...

Exclusive: HBO has set Ides Of March screenwriter and playwright Beau Willimon to write Jack Johnson, a miniseries about the life of the first African-American world heavyweight champion. The mini teams Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman and historian and documentary director Ken Burns. To be told in four to six parts, the mini is based on the Geoffrey C. Ward book Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson, which Burns previously adapted into the Emmy-winning PBS documentary of the same name. Burns is aboard to direct. Hanks and Goetzman are exec producers, and Burns is too. Willimon is co-exec producer. In the early 20th Century, Johnson was the class of the heavyweight division, a proud man of color who paid a high price for it. The main problem: he twice married white women and did not hide it or the fact that he liked to live well.

Exclusive: HBO has set Ides Of March screenwriter and playwright Beau Willimon to write Jack Johnson, a miniseries about the life of the first African-American world heavyweight champion. The mini teams Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman and historian and documentary director Ken Burns. To be told in four to six parts, the mini is based on the Geoffrey C. Ward book Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson, which Burns previously adapted into the Emmy-winning PBS documentary of the same name. Burns is aboard to direct. Hanks and Goetzman are exec producers, and Burns is too. Willimon is co-exec producer. In the early 20th Century, Johnson was the class of the heavyweight division, a proud man of color who paid a high price for it. The main problem: he twice married white women and did not hide it or the fact that he liked to live well.

U2 wins top prize for the ambitious U2 360 Tour.

By James Dinh

Taylor Swift

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/ Getty Images

On Thursday (November 4), U2, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift won big at the 2010 Billboard Touring Awards, which hand out prizes based on global box-office numbers reported to the music trade publication Billboard.

The evening's top honors went to U2's massive U2 360 Tour, which won the Top Tour and Top Draw Awards. Those awards are given to the tours that, respectively, have the highest box-office gross and sell the most tickets worldwide during the period between October 1, 2009, and September 30.

Lady Gaga, who is projected to gross nearly $200 million once her long-running Monster Ball Tour wraps up, took home the Breakthrough Award as well as the Concert Marketing & Promotion Award. Virgin Mobile served as the singer's official sponsors for the American and Canadian legs of her trek.

Taylor Swift continued her...

ESPN has greenlighted an original film about the life of boxing champion Jack Johnson. Expected to air sometime next year, the untitled biopic will be executive produced by Gerald Abrams (Nuremberg) of Cypress Point Prods. and written by Paris Qualles (The Tuskegee Airmen). Johnson became the first black boxing champion when he won the heavyweight title in 1908. His presence inflamed racial tensions in the United States throughout his seven-year title reign and the rest of his turbulent life.